(Contains spoilers)
“Main kahan jaaun?” (Where should I go?)
This was a question my grandmother often asked in her final days. No answer satisfied her, though the word Lahore would sometimes bring a smile to her face. She often thought she was in Lahore. She was suffering with Alzheimers. That, at least, was the medical explanation. Lahore carried more than memories of a sweet shop she remembered.
“Bauji kahan hain?” (Where’s my father) was another question she asked frequently. Sometimes she knew. “Bauji bahar gaye hain, log ek doosre ko maar kaat rahe hain,” (He has gone out, people are butchering each other) she told me with deep anxiety. She was, at once, both in 1947 and 2026.
Imtiaz Ali’s latest—Main Vaapas Aaunga (MVA) is similarly set in 1947 and 2026. In that partition and in this one. Popular discourse about partition in 2026 only asks one question, and it is a rhetorical one—whose fault was it? The answers are ready.
The Indian National Congress, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Muslims, those who are alive, and those who are discriminated against and lynched. Muslims, those alive then and those alive today, are perpetually responsible for “breaking” the country.
